Re: disposable cash VISA

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

On Fri, 8 Apr 1994, cort wrote:

> It _seems_ that it should be so simple to set up anonymous credit
> cards.  Here is one simple scenario:

(Details of secured credit card system elided)

> Why not?  Why can't _I_ sell these sorts of credit cards?  Does this
> truly provide additional privacy?
> 
> Cort.

The Feds agree which is why they outlawed such transactions.  "Banks" have
to comply with "know your customer" rules.  Civilians may not realize it
but a VISA account is just a bank account like any other save that it
usually has a debit balance rather than a credit balance.  Issuers have to
obtain taxpayer ID numbers from their customers and identification
information "similar to what a bank would require to cash a check".

This rule has been extended throughout the OECD countries by recent
treaty.  Even outside the OECD, card issuers have to be conservative
because many VISA merchants are not online and one could run up a lot of
little transactions if one were interested in card fraud.  The issuer
would be stuck.  Once all transactions can be verified online, this may
improve.

It is not easy to get permission to issue VISA cards.

That being said, *individuals* can use the secured card system to obtain
credit cards in names of convenience.  It is just hard to do this on an
institutional basis.

Duncan Frissell

"The problem of governance in the 21st Century -- How to regulate
thousands of annual transactions carried out by the billions of buyers and
sellers in Market Earth."